Prescription Sunglasses Puzzler

Mar 15, 2003

RAY: There'd been an accident on the upper Canyon Road. A middle-aged driver in a European sports car evidently lost control in the early morning hours and plunged a hundred feet to his death.

Even though he wore a seatbelt and the airbag now deflated had obviously deployed, neither could have prevented the broken neck that ended his life. The police detective called to the scene began to study the evidence. He slowly removed the dead man's sunglasses admiring them and thinking to himself, how nice it would be to own a fancy pair of designer glasses like these. He put them on and looked at himself in the driver's side view mirror, nice but not my prescription, he thought. He removed them and carefully placed them on the dashboard. He stared at the dead man's face, he obviously hadn't shaved that morning. He noticed the deep impression those sunglasses had made on the bridge of his nose, the obvious result of the tremendous force created by the exploding airbag. He stared intently into the dead man's blue green eyes and thought how peaceful he looked and how his relaxed countenance belied the obvious terror of his last few moments on earth. He slowly rose from his uncomfortable crouching position. He summoned one of the officers to the scene to dust for prints. This was a homicide.

TOM: Huh. Wow.

RAY: What did he see, what did he know?

Answer:

RAY: What did he see, what did he know? This, I mean this, was loaded with hints.

TOM: I think so too.

RAY: Right from the prescription sunglasses.

TOM: That's clearly important.

RAY: And the staring into the blue, what did I say?

TOM: Blue-green eyes.

RAY: Blue green eyes, one, he had one blue, one green. What he saw, and what made him suspicious was that the victim was wearing contact lenses, and you wouldn't be wearing your contact lenses and --

TOM: Your prescription glasses.

RAY: Your prescription sunglasses at the --

TOM: The same time.

RAY: But if you were, you'd probably run off the road and crash your car, but --